Help for the Haunted(107)

After that, there was only the crashing of the ocean waves, the light of the moon, with me beneath it, lingering by the pay phone for a long while. I looked at Emily Sanino’s shopping lists—flour, unsalted butter, and all the rest made me think of Boshoff and his cookbooks and poems and his sick wife beside him in bed. And then I had a thought and picked up the phone again.

Four-one-one connected me right through and Dereck answered on the first ring, as though he had been waiting for me all along. “Of course I’ll come get you,” he said when I explained where I was and that I needed a ride. “But you’ll have to sit tight. It’ll take me a bit to get there.”

I was so relieved that I didn’t mind waiting. After we hung up, I sat down on the curb. If I’d had my journal I would have used the time to put down the events of the day, beginning with the visit to the nature preserve with Heekin and ending with the moment in Emily Sanino’s living room. I would have read over what I’d already written about Abigail and the things that happened that summer too. Instead, I tried to think of all the places I might have dropped it: in the dark of my uncle’s theater, in Heekin’s VW bug, down in the foundation across the street from our house.

At last, I looked up to see Dereck’s jeep pull into the lot. I climbed inside, feeling relief but also an unexpected awkwardness. Now that he and my sister were over, what connection was left between us?

We pulled onto the street, and it was as though he knew the way by heart, making rights and lefts without checking the map on the floor between the seats. “Do you mind if I ask what you were doing here?” he said after a while, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Trying to figure some things out,” I told him, which was the simplest explanation.

“And did you?” was all he asked.

“Yes and no. Really, I ended up with more questions.”

“About your parents?”

“Them, and my sister, too.”

Dereck didn’t respond. We reached the highway and picked up speed. The haphazard rise and fall of lights all around, and the constant shudder of the canvas top, made it difficult to talk. We tried anyway, but it was awkward small talk—details about those turkeys mostly—and it made me think again how quickly any connection was dissipating between us. At last, we passed a WELCOME TO MARYLAND sign, and Dereck took his ruined hand off the steering wheel and pointed to the floor between the seats. “By the way, I brought something to show you.”

“A map?” I said and laughed a little, despite myself.

“No. Look underneath.”

I peeled the map away and found a chestnut brown yearbook from Dundalk High School, the year 1988 in raised gold numbers across the top.

“It’s from my senior year. I grabbed it out of my junk drawer when you called. I want to prove something to you. Page sixty-four.”

With that same hand, Dereck clicked on the interior light. I opened the book, and a newspaper clipping slipped out onto my lap. I left it there and turned the pages until arriving at the one he specified. “A picture of the exchange student from Peru?”

He smiled, showing those wolfish teeth. “Not that photo, Sylvie. The one beneath it.”

“A group shot of the Honors Society?”

“Recond row, rour reople rover rom ra reft.”

I traced my finger up to the second row, four people over from the left until landing on Dereck, grinning big and wide.

“Ree, R-I’m rot a rope, rafter rall.”

“I never thought you were a dope. Even though you make it hard to believe considering how much time you spend talking like a cartoon dog.”

Dereck laughed, and the moment made me feel close to him again. “Well, thanks for your faith in me.”

Before closing the book, I stared a little longer at the photo. “You look happy.”

“And I don’t now?”

“You do. It’s just, I don’t know, a different look on your face back then.”

“Well, that’s when I had all my fingers. That’s also before I realized high school would end, and I’d actually need to make a plan for my life.”

“Couldn’t you still make a plan?”

“Maybe. First, I have to get through the last of the season with the turkeys. Thanksgiving is only three more days away as of tomorrow.”

I thought of those mornings when I paused on the path to stare at the birds in the field, how empty it would feel without them, how empty it would feel without Dereck there too. We pulled off the highway and navigated the dark roads of Dundalk until turning onto Butter Lane at last. I told him to go slow, shining his high beams on the pavement as I looked out for my journal. He even pulled off so I could look around by the foundation too. But my little violet book wasn’t there, either.

It had only been twelve hours, more or less, yet it felt like ages since that morning when I first left the house and met Heekin at the end of the lane. Rose’s truck was still in the driveway, her bedroom light on. Otherwise the house was dark, except, of course, for the light in the basement, which filled me with the same nervous fear as it had for weeks.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” I told Dereck. “I have a little money for gas if you—”

He held up that hand with the missing fingers. “This one’s on me. I’m happy you called, Sylvie. Feel free to do it again if you ever need my help.”